


pakanā

by Siria



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-23
Updated: 2013-04-23
Packaged: 2017-12-09 06:23:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/771032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You know we're going to get yelled at, right?" Jenna said.</p>
            </blockquote>





	pakanā

**Author's Note:**

  * For [celli](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celli/gifts).



> For celli, who wanted a buddy cop AU. With thanks to sheafrotherdon for betaing, and a tip of the hat to _due South_.

"You know we're going to get yelled at, right?" Jenna said.

"Pfft." Kono sounded obscenely cheerful. "We're late for Saturday dinner all the time, my mom will keep leftovers for us."

"Yeah," Jenna said, shifting her stance in an attempt to get her feet planted more firmly on the crumbling concrete ledge. She'd never really had a problem with heights, but the ground looked scarily far away just then. "See, I was more thinking about how the boss is going to give us the loose cannon talk again."

"Chin's not _actually_ going to take our badges, it's just bluster," Kono said. She shimmied around a little, hitching her hip up. "Hey, you think you can get my phone out of my pocket? I don't have room to put down the rifles here."

It was a measure of how much Jenna's life had turned upside down over the past six months that this was probably the most awkward part of her evening—she was trapped on what was essentially a window sill, five floors up, while a heavily-armed and pretty pissed off drug gang searched the building for them, with no one else from HPD knowing where they were. All this, and what Jenna was feeling really anxious about was having to put her hand into her co-worker's jeans pocket.

Honestly, Jenna thought with a sigh, reaching over and gingerly retrieving Kono's phone while keeping her gaze directed straight out at the blue Hawaiian sky: honestly, at this point she should probably be encouraging Chin to yell at them.

 

******

 

In the end, no encouragement was needed. Various members of HPD stood around and did their best at looking like they were officially processing the scene and booking the perps, and not like they were desperately eavesdropping to see just what Kelly's bunch was up to now. Not that they needed to put a lot of work into overhearing. Sure, Lori mostly just looked worried and upset, but Danny yelled at them, Chin yelled at them; hell, Chin yelled at a louder volume than Danny, which was probably unprecedented.

Steve, of course, fist-bumped Kono and beamed at her. "Nice work, _kaikaina_! Hit centre of mass every time."

"No encouraging, Steven!" Danny said, smacking Steve on the shoulder. "Why are you encouraging the two rookies to go antagonise the Triads all by themselves and then make like Tarzan to get away, huh? What is wrong with you?"

"Well," Jenna felt the compulsion to clarify, "technically Kono jury-rigged a zip line and we used that, we didn't actually swing to safety. Um. And we didn't _specifically_ go after them, it just sort of… happened."

"Sort of happened," Chin repeated flatly, before rolling his eyes.

"We went out to get a sandwich?" Jenna said, helplessly.

Danny threw up his hands and stomped away.

All of which should have been making Jenna feel sick with worry about what this was going to do to her chances of getting her position made permanent, but then Kono was beaming at her, and something twisted instead, hot and uncomfortable, in the pit of Jenna's stomach.

 

******

 

Chin had taken her to one side to offer her the job while the others were still (noisily, drunkenly) celebrating Wo Fat's capture. "Trial basis, because I know this isn't exactly the kind of work you're used to," he had told her, "but you made it through three hours trapped in a shipping container with Steve and then helped us get the intel we needed, so I'm willing to bet you've got the kind of determination we're looking for."

Because the filter between Jenna's brain and her mouth had never really worked all that well, and because she and Lori had just done some celebratory vodka shots, she'd blurted out, "My superiors always just called it rash stubbornness."

Chin's eyes crinkled up when he laughed. "Yeah, I think you're going to fit in here just fine."

 

******

 

"So basically," Jenna finished up, "I came to Honolulu on the trail of the killers of my fiancé and, for reasons which probably don't need exploring at this juncture, I've stayed on to offer my skills in my capacity as a CIA liaison with HPD."

The suspect blinked wordlessly up at Jenna from beneath his fall of badly bleached hair. Kono had one knee planted squarely on the middle of his back while she finished putting the cuffs on him; her clothes were damp and coated with a layer of fine white sand and she was grinning broadly. Kono had a deep appreciation for foot chases that Jenna couldn't fathom.

"You know," Kono said, standing and hauling the guy to his feet, "I'm pretty sure when he yelled, 'How the hell did you find me, bitch?' that he wasn't asking for a recap of how you got all those investigative skills." She wasn't smiling, but her cheeks were dimpling in a way that suggested she was holding back a grin.

"I was not," the guy told Jenna earnestly, before spitting sand out of his mouth.

"Oh," Jenna said. "Sorry." She trudged up the beach towards their car behind Jenna and the suspect, confused and curious tourists parting in a wave around them. "In my defense, I haven't slept in, like. A while." They'd picked up this case only a few minutes after they officially put the last one to bed; Jenna hadn't seen her tiny apartment in days. Steve probably knew some SEAL trick about how to stay going for a week on three hours sleep and a half-cup of coffee, but Jenna didn't.

Then again, Jenna had also seen him cling to the undercarriage of a speeding truck and walk away with only a couple of scrapes, so he was clearly not a good baseline to establish here.

"Danny's going to yell at you," Kono called out in a singsong voice.

"Danny always yells," Jenna pointed out, holding open the back door while Kono helped the suspect get into the car. (Danny had a theory about appropriate levels of sleep and neuro-cognitive something-or-other, one which was often directed at Steve at great volume.)

"Of course; it's how he shows affection," Kono said, stepping back to let Jenna close the door. "It's an East Coast thing, right?"

Jenna put her hands on her hips, feeling oddly aggrieved. "Not all of us!" She hadn't yelled at Kono, not once.

"Yeah," Kono said, bumping her lightly on the shoulder with her fist. Her smile was small but her eyes were warm and dark. "Different with us, right?"

"Uh," Jenna said, feeling her cheeks heat. "Right."

 

******

 

She maybe yelled a bit when Kono tried to teach her how to surf, but Jenna always maintained that that was entirely justified: she really _had_ thought she'd seen a shark.

 

******

 

Jenna's dad died her senior year of high school, her mom just after she finished her undergrad; she had no siblings and a couple of cousins she occasionally remembered to send holiday cards to. Meeting Kono and Chin's sprawling extended family had been a new form of culture shock. There were cousins and aunts and uncles enough to populate half the island, not to mention the practically-cousins and aunts-through-marriage and uncles-by-courtesy. Jenna accompanied Kono to a steady stream of cook outs and Sunday lunches, and slowly felt herself acclimate to being surrounded by dozens of people who remembered her name and wanted to know if she'd recovered fully from last month's chest infection, or if she'd seen that new show on PBS.

A team dinner at Kono's parents' house became a monthly ritual, the six of them crowded around the dining room table while Mrs Kalakaua fed them until everyone was fit to burst. One Friday, Kono teased her mom about having practically adopted Steve and Jenna. "The clan wasn't big enough, Ma, you had to bring in some more?"

The sight of a six foot tall Navy SEAL turning bright red was almost enough to distract Jenna from her own embarrassment.

"What?" Mrs Kalakaua called from the kitchen, "All you kids running around, forgetting to eat, pulling all those crazy stunts—don't roll your eyes at me, Kono! You need some good home cooking."

She emerged carrying a platter loaded up with what looked like half a pig. Jenna could have sworn that when Mrs Kalakaua put it down on the table, the wood creaked from the weight of it; it smelled delicious, a sweet-sharp scent of soy sauce and ginger.

"Uh," Danny said, raising one hand. His eyes were wide. "Could I petition to get adopted too? Because this is a pretty sweet deal right here."

"No need to petition, brah," Kono said, snagging some bread rolls from the basket before passing it down the table.

"If Auntie decides to feed you," Chin added, cocking an eyebrow, "you're already in."

"'S'really good, Mrs Kalakaua," Steve mumbled around a mouthful of food. He was doing his best impression of a chipmunk, cheeks bulging as he worked through his plate with a focused air.

"Manners, Steven," Danny said, slapping him on the back, and the two of them were off bickering.

Mrs Kalakaua rolled her eyes in mock indignation. "See, honey," she said, patting Jenna on the shoulder, "this is why you're a good partner for my daughter. Such a good influence!"

Jenna looked across the table at Kono, who raised an eyebrow at her in a way which clearly telegraphed that, given the stunt Jenna had pulled yesterday, bluffing her way into the senator's office to give Chin time to hack the computer system successfully, Jenna was anything but.

"Yes, Mrs Kalakaua," Jenna said, and ducked her head to hide her smile.

 

******

 

"Okay," Jenna told herself, "okay, okay, breathe. Assess."

She had a phone that was definitely broken beyond repair, a gun strapped to her thigh under her skirt, thirty minutes before they missed their check-in and Danny and Lori would start to come looking for them, and a deep loathing for the phrase "routine undercover assignment."

Jenna braced her hands against the restroom's grimy, tiny sink and eyed herself in the mirror; the sink's porcelain vibrated dully in time with the basso rumbling of the club's music. In the yellowish light of the room's only bulb, she looked sallow and ill, but determined. "Next time there's an op that requires someone wears stilettoes," she told her reflection, "we're sending Steve."

She nodded at herself and then headed back out towards the dance floor, hoping that her unsteady steps would come across less "inexperienced undercover cop in gay bar on the trail of a serial killer" and more "tipsy woman looking for her girlfriend." Jenna had to wriggle her way through the crush of bodies to make it to Kono—she was dancing with every sign of utter abandon in the middle of the crowd, though Jenna knew that she was doing so while keeping a careful eye on everything going on in the club.

Jenna beamed at her and wrapped her arms around Kono, leaning in to yell in her ear over the pulse of the music, "Phone's broken, no back-up, but I think I spotted her. Woman at the bar, left-hand side, green dress."

Kono pressed close, moving them in a slow circle in time with the music so that she could get a look at the suspect. Her hair fell in a heavy curtain against Jenna's face; the raw, cool silk of it made Jenna shiver in the crowded room. "If that's her," Kono said, "we only get one chance to get her to come after us."

"So we make it good, right," Jenna said, suddenly unable to meet Kono's eyes. "Go for it now. Pretend it's real."

"Hey," Kono said, leaning in so that her forehead was resting against Jenna's. "Who's pretending?"

Jenna blinked, startled. "Well—"

"Kiss me," Kono said, simply and with no trace of pretense on her face: as steady as if she'd been waiting for Jenna to do this all along. Jenna thought back hurriedly over the last several months and realised that maybe she'd been wanting to for just as long, only without ever being quite able to put a name to it.

So Jenna did; she kissed Kono, and then she smiled, and she did it again, and again, the two of them swaying together in the middle of the dance floor as they worked out the odds and came up with a plan and got ready to go to work.

 

******

 

This time, Chin, Danny _and_ Steve yelled at them.

"What were you _thinking_?" Danny said, palms pressed together, pleading.

"Completely irresponsible!" Chin yelled.

"Strategically defensible but tactically unsound!" Steve said, hands on his hips.

Jenna just smiled, and took Kono's hand.


End file.
